1. Discord is much like the late 90's chat rooms like TalkCity. It's live chat basically. I don't go on FB much anymore but back when they had private chat where you could talk one on one with someone in real time. I have servers from ones with thousands of members to one I made for my wife and I for private chat. The subjects can cover a great range of things. But a lot are for gamers, which is what discord started out exclusively as a gaming website.

Within each server the owner can make many different channels to where a wide range of discussion be had. Like a lot of my gaming servers are dedicated primary to one game; I am a member for three Warframe servers. But within those servers there are also channels for general gaming, or other specific games. My first server I was invited to back in 2017 was for Minecraft. They also have voice chat options. Kind of like Zoom with just audio. I had a server that use to host a monthly music night, where you can take turns and play music that everyone can listen to. I don't know how to do it but I know it is possible. There's probably a lot of other features to that I just haven't ever seen used or done.

They also have a feature that is much like PM's here, but like the rest of discord is in real time. But it also allows you to connect with individual people. There are a lot people that I am friends with who I don't share a server with including both my boys. Like people that leave a server for whatever their reasons I can still connect to them through a private conversation. Or a conversation someone doesn't want seen by all the member. I remember when a young man reached out to me because he was having suicidal thoughts. Unfortunately he isn't the only one and a lot of times they feel ashamed to ask about things like that. Because so many of the servers I am a member of are gaming, there's not a lot of people my age in the servers I am in for the most part. In one server I have been dubbed "Uncle Adam".

2. That would be the call of all the members here and how they want to connect. It's live chat and you can connect via a PC or there is an application for smart phones, iPhone I know for sure. There's really not much different in the kind of content that we could have on discord than here. I always think of discord as a big family gathering so to speak. I don't much use it for gaming unless I do some voice chat with someone that I am playing with that doesn't have a gaming headset. But having separate channels (I don't know if there is a limit to how many one server can have) for instance could be one channel for each person here that wants to do a review thread. Since discord never purges any content (content can only be deleted by the server owner and anyone he authorizes to do so.)

How actually mods and owners address actions to be taken on the part of an unwanted or disruptive member I don't know. I've never been a mod and don't care to. The only server I own is for my wife and I and there is no other members. So I don't know how that works. Perhaps someone else will know or is a mod themselves.

Depending on the amount of activity is going at the present moment it may be difficult for some to follow as the information scrolls up as people post comments. So most discord owners have a in general channel like the equivalent of Meanwhile. So people can shoot the breeze and not really miss content as it scrolls to fast because they have multiple channels dedicated to specific subjects. But I mostly use it to socialize more than anything in most all the servers I am a member of. Just open my browser at work and just check in the servers I am a member of when I have down time.

Edit: One other thing I forgot.  To get members into your server you have to send an invite.  Which can be sent through PM's or can be posted publicly.  The invite can be for a limited time or can be indefinitely.  So as we got new members here they could link though the invite to the discord server.  So then that way the server could get populated by the people that want in and still retain the people here that want to continue to connect via the message board here.

I've been part of other message forums where people started up a Discord. A lot of younger people like Discord because it's interactive. I've used it myself for mobile games and have nothing against it, however it tends to splinter the conversation and invariably you have a group of people who move away from the forum and hang out on Discord instead. Similar to the effect that Twitter has had. You guys already have the Zoom meetings where members can interact, and I imagine most folks are too busy to spend hours hanging out on Discord. 

Don’t I cause enough discord already?

Yeah, let me echo that I do not see any benefit to having a CCF Discord group. I've used the platform on and off a few times, but for the kind of in-depth discussions, placed under dedicated discussion topics, that we have here it's just not a particularly suitable platform. It also just doesn't feel like as much of a community experience as an old school forum like ours.

As someone else said above, it's the live chat aspect that is its big draw and I'm not convinced there are enough folks here who would be into live chatting regularly enough to make it worthwhile.

In fact, if we ever wanted to go the live chat route, isn't that functionality available through Proboards anyway? I swear we had live chat here over Xmas once?

I liken Discord to IRC back in the day.. it's organized chat rooms where while you can live chat, it also keeps the chats there so you can view them later.

I have a few friends and online games that use it, but honestly it's not very different from this, unless you have to do things like live voice chat. It may have more space for things like video memes and such, if that appeals.

Sounds like Icctrombone 's (almost) weekly Zoom meetings serve a similar purpose, with some advantages.